Page 73 of The Bound Blood
“Not bonded,” Nolan says quickly, reassuring. “Just… aware. More sensitive. The Veil recognizes people who touch its edges too often.” His gaze lifts to mine. “And you’ve touched it more than either of us.”
Raiden nods once, expression darkening. “That explains you. Doesn’t explain us.”
Nolan presses his lips together. “We were there every time, Raiden. With her. Supporting her. Helping her close fractures that should’ve torn wider.” He shifts his weight, voice tightening with something like understanding—and fear. “Shared exposure can create shared sensitivity. It’s rare, but it’s happened in the past.”
A third pulse—so faint it’s almost imagined—rises through the ground like a breath.
Raiden tenses. Nolan inhales sharply.
And I…I swear I feel something cold and vast brush the edge of my mind.
“This isn’t just resonance, is it?” I whisper.
Nolan meets my gaze, his eyes somber. “…No. That felt personal.”
Raiden’s jaw clenches. “Whatever’s out there knows we’re watching.”
A chill tangles down my spine.
“Or worse,” Nolan says softly, “it’s watching back.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
KAEL
The forest is quiet.Too quiet. Even the wind feels like it’s waiting, holding its breath as I move through the tree line beyond the academy wards.
I shouldn’t be here.
But rules don’t matter. Only she does.
I waited until she was surrounded—until Nolan and Raiden flanked her like twin shields, until her pulse steadied and her magic settled enough that she wouldn’t question me slipping away. They ground her better than anything else at the moment. Better than me, even.
Because after our shared dream, another came.
One she didn’t see. One the Veil pushed into my mind the moment she fell back to sleep beside me.
Shadows walking the academy halls. Students dissolving into nothing between one heartbeat and the next. A cold pull thinning the air like someone was drawing breath from the other side.
And Lindsay—her silhouette fracturing into silver shards, a whisper curling around her:
She will be next, Shadow-born.
I haven’t told her. I won’t, not until I know what I’m fighting. So I’m here. Hunting answers. Hunting the thing that whispered her name.
I stop at an old boundary marker, stone cracked, half-swallowed by roots. The sigil carved into its face flickers, dimming and brightening like a failing pulse.
I touch it. The rune trembles under my fingers. That’s new. And very, very bad.
I reach deeper with my senses, letting my magic skim the Veil’s surface. It hits me in staggered waves—too cold, too aware. Like a beast disturbed in its sleep.
But beneath the cold, I feel something else: Absences. Holes in the weave. Missing threads of life where students should be. People don’t just vanish. Not unless something tears them away.
I pull the folded pages from my coat—notes I acquired from the headmaster’s office who thought his filing wards were strong enough to keep me out. Three students are officially missing. Two more removed from record entirely. A sixth whose name is half-erased from the parchment like someone tried to scratch out the memory of them.
Every one of them disappeared alone. At night. And every one of them felt…familiar in the dream. Like echoes.
I move deeper into the forest, following the thin tug I’ve been feeling since I woke from that dream—a directionless pull, like a hook caught in my magic dragging me toward something inevitable.
